so the White House may compromise on the Bush Tax Cuts. Obviously…the elections brought a Republican majority in the House. An new AP poll says 53% of Americans think we should keep the tax cuts on everyone.
But when news broke on the notoriously wrong Huffington Post that David Axelrod sorta, kinda, maybe hinted at the possibility that perhaps the White House would compromise on tax cuts, Blogistan erupted in furor, you’d think this is the first time we’re hearing this.
Where was the fight?
Why couldn’t Obama say something like this?
President Barack Obama said it would be “irresponsible” for Congress to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and voiced support for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council Chairman Lawrence Summers.
“I can’t give tax cuts to the top 2 percent of Americans” and “lower the deficit at the same time,” the president said during an hour-long town-hall discussion on jobs and the economy on CNBC television from the Newseum in Washington.
To give “tax relief primarily to millionaires and billionaires” would be ” an irresponsible thing for us to do,” Obama said. “Those folks are least likely to spend it.”
http://www.investmentnews.com/…
or this
President Obama is applauding two Republican senators who voted for a small business bill and says he’d welcome that kind of cooperation on the divisive issue of extending tax cuts for the middle class.
Mr. Obama thanked Republicans George Voinovich of Ohio and George LeMieux of Florida for voting to move the bill closer to final passage. Speaking in the Rose Garden after a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Mr. Obama urged lawmakers to approve an extension of Bush-era tax cuts for middle class families making less than $250,000 a year.
Mr. Obama says Republicans should stop holding those tax cuts “hostage.”
“They want to hold these middle class tax cuts hostage until they get an additional tax cut for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans,” Mr. Obama said. “We simply can’t afford that.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories…
or maybe he should give examples of what tax cuts for the rich hurts
President Obama criticized congressional Republicans on Tuesday for advocating tax cuts for the wealthy, saying that approach “doesn’t make sense” and would undermine federal spending on education.
Obama told business leaders and educators at the first White House Summit on Community Colleges that though he shares Republican anxiety over the national debt, America could not “fund tax cuts for those who don’t need it by slashing education for those who do.”
In addition to tax cuts, House Republicans have proposed cutting $100 billion, about 20 percent of total discretionary spending, from the federal budget. Republicans did not specify whether they would cut education in their campaign-season “Pledge to America,” issued Sept. 23.
At the summit, an event highlighting one of higher education’s fastest-growing sectors, Obama said the GOP plan “just doesn’t make sense — not for students, not for our economy.”
http://www.star-telegram.com/2…
Or maybe he should’ve made Republicans look like they hate the unemployed
In his weekly address, President Obama had some harsh words for Republicans – for prioritizing tax cuts for the wealthy over the continuance of federally extended unemployment benefits:
[Republicans] say we shouldn’t provide unemployment insurance because it costs money. So after years of championing policies that turned a record surplus into a massive deficit, including a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, they’ve finally decided to make their stand on the backs of the unemployed. They’ve got no problem spending money on tax breaks for folks at the top who don’t need them and didn’t even ask for them; but they object to helping folks laid off in this recession who really do need help. And every day this goes on, another 50,000 Americans lose that badly needed lifeline.
Well, I think these Senators are wrong. We can’t afford to go back to the same misguided policies that led us into this mess. We need to move forward with the policies that are leading us out of this mess. The fact is, most economists agree that extending unemployment insurance is one of the single most cost-effective ways to help jumpstart the economy.”
http://minnesotaindependent.co…
But that was before the midterms. Now, he’s a coward
– President Barack Obama said Saturday that the US cannot afford to extend tax breaks to the richest two percent of America, in his first weekly address since the midterm elections.
Responding to Republican proposals that tax cuts approved by former president George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003 be extended across the board, Obama said, “I don’t see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest two percent of Americans.
“We’d be digging ourselves into an even deeper fiscal hole and passing the burden on to our children,” he said. “I recognize that both parties are going to have to work together and compromise to get something done here. But I want to make my priorities clear from the start … I believe we can’t afford to borrow and spend another $700 billion on permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.”
However, Obama insisted he wanted to extend the tax breaks for America’s middle class and urged Congress to act on the issue before the cuts expire at the end of 2010.
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpps/n…
None of this seems to matter in the fantasyword of the left blogsphere, where a top rec’d diary on GOS is a petition asking Obama to…do what he’s already been doing.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
Yes all they want is the President to “fight.”
All that above is not actually fighting. Even Paul Krugman calls him a wimp. And here I thought it’s ok for him to compromise as long as he fights. Yeah, that was bullsh*t. Just like I said it was at the time, Because that’s what the professional left is, a bunch of bullsh*t artists too afraid to admit they want unreasonable things, so they try to convince us that they’d be ok with X and Y and then pretend like X and Y didn’t happen when it proves to be a failure. It’s not possible for Obama to get credit for fighting, because it’s not a “fight” unless he wins.
Why would someone fight when you can’t guarantee your supporters will be there if you lose? The best fighters are the ones whose base of support do not change whether they win, or lose.
At this point I’m willing to sacrifice Obama for Palin. If nothing else, to watch these loonies on the left come to terms with what they would have lost.
They deserve Palin.
Ingrates
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